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Tuesday, November 26, 1912: Ma’s so sick. Hope I don’t have to miss school. That would spite me something dreadful.

Her mother probably needed help with both housework and barn work

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

I wonder what’s wrong with Grandma’s mother. Maybe she caught whatever ailment her little brother Jimmie had the previous week. On November 19 Grandma wrote:

Poor little Jimmie got sick last night and had to miss his first day of school.

It seems like Grandma’s parents were quicker to consider having their children miss school when extra help was needed than parents today. For example, on November 18, 1912 Grandma also was concerned that she might need to miss school:

I’m half way out of something I’m worrying about since before school started and that was that I was afraid I’d have to miss school when Pa had his threshing done. They started today and well I went to school today too. So glad I don’t have to miss, that would be too bad for me.

(A positive note about Grandma’s parents–Even though Grandma periodically worried that her parents would make her miss school for one reason or another, I don’t think that she ever actually missed school because they needed her at home.)

Sorry to hear another Muffly became ill – had hoped for their sake it would not spread. I do suspect school had a different place in people’s worlds 100 years ago. While people were much the same, life was different.

My mother’s family were a farm family in the midwest, and 100 years ago not many children we able to go beyond 8th grade because they were needed to work on the farm. My Mom, the middle of 9, went to college – but her older siblings were not able to do so.

Hello

I look forward to sharing my grandmother's diary with relatives and friends. Helena Muffly (Swartz) kept a diary from 1911-1914. She was 15 years old when she began this diary. I plan to post these entries one day at a time—exactly 100 years after she wrote them. I hope you enjoy this glimpse back to a slower paced time.

The header is a picture of the farm where my grandmother lived when she wrote this diary. It is located in Northumberland County in central Pennsyvlania about a mile outside of McEwenvsille. My father said that the buildings look similar to what they looked like when he was a child.